A Foundation of Sand
by Bryon Nightshade
Summary: X1 aftermath. One-shot. Sigma claimed his revolution was necessary to usher in a new age. He failed, but the damage is done- the old world is gone. What will come next is, as yet, unclear... for the one being that would have the most to say about that doesn't want the job.


Glass crunched and splintered beneath heavy tread feet. Explosions and weapons fire had sent shards of it dozens of meters away from the building it had once adorned. You could follow the glass back to the building- the glass, and pieces of wall, and insulation, and machine, and, occasionally, person.

You could say Maverick Hunter HQ had been hit pretty hard. You could also say that the sun is hot.

The building's first floor had had glass covering almost its full front face, and numerous windows. The architects had worked on a theme of "transparency". They'd wanted as much visibility as possible both inward and outward. The Maverick Hunters, they understood, had nothing to hide, and everything to gain by being open. How little they had known.

The rubble got very dense close to the building. Most of it was burnt beyond recognition by plasma weapons, or the fires those weapons had caused. A fine layer of ash covered every surviving surface. One computer monitor flickered, its battery backup trying to sustain it as it was designed, even if that was purposeless now. The doors to the elevators had been blown apart; their twisted forms lay broken in front of the open darkness of the elevator shafts.

Public works had, at the least, managed to take away all the bodies- that is, everything that could be immediately identified as a body. Here and there remained burnt lumps whose origin could only be guessed at.

Mega Man X couldn't bring himself to speculate as to what they'd been.

He looked across the devastation with a heavy heart. Okay, he admitted to himself, he didn't actually have a heart, what with being an android and all. But his emotions and thoughts were so delicately wrought, so subtle, so complexly human, that he could say he had a heavy heart and everyone would know how he felt.

This should have been a bastion of strength for society. This was Maverick Hunter Headquarters. From here, humans and reploids alike tried to protect society from the scourge of Mavericks. The Maverick Hunters were peacekeepers and wardens. Protection was their mandate. In the event of an uprising of this magnitude, their headquarters should have been the safest place of all.

Instead it was a charnel house. That was because, before the war, it had been the incubator for the worst Mavericks yet.

X's helmet was off, so when he put a hand to his head, it ran through unkempt black robot-hair. He was still registering some disbelief at all that had happened. Disbelief that the greatest Maverick Hunter of all, Sigma, had become the leader of the Mavericks. Disbelief that he'd swayed almost half the Hunters' squad leaders to go with him. Disbelief that the ensuing massacre had brought total Hunter losses over 90%, to say nothing of casualties amongst the Hunters' non-combat support staff. Few of those even made it out of Headquarters.

The morgue had reported a huge number of back wounds. It made X feel sick.

And then, after disemboweling the Maverick Hunters, the rebels had stormed out into the city, determined to seize control of everything. They hadn't believed in the concept of noncombatants.

And how could they? A Maverick was, by definition, a reploid that had violated the Three Laws of Robotics that underpinned society in the Robot Age. Such robots were already willing to harm humans to further their own goals. Sigma's new stance was that harming humans was a goal in itself.

X stepped further into the building. Crunch crunch. The fires had gone out by now, but the acrid smells lingered like a curse. X considered dialing down his olfaction, decided against it. If he were to try and shield himself against the reality of what had just happened, there would be no reason to be here.

It was fairly dark inside once X was fully underneath the ceiling. One column of light stood in the middle of the room. Curious, X stepped forward until he was underneath it and looked up. Sunlight- dulled by dust and debris, but sunlight all the same- was finding its way through holes blown in every floor from ceiling to ground. X knew that, culturally, light was associated with knowledge and understanding. It was morbid to think that knowledge could only be gleaned from pain of this degree.

Why _was_ he here, anyway?

X saw a round object out of the corner of his eye. He looked at it more closely. It was a coffee cup, he realized. The heat had melted the logos off and fused the cover to the cup, but it was still recognizable. How pathetic. How typical. Most of the people in this building hadn't had any weapon stronger than coffee.

They expected X to take over after _this_...

The building would be condemned, he was sure. He was no architect, but he felt confident that he shouldn't see so many protruding wires or exposed supports. The building could no longer bear its own weight.

Even in defeat, Sigma's betrayal meant that there could be no return to the status quo ante bellum. X's comparative subroutine called up a reference to something called the Punic Wars. The Romans, determined that Carthage should never harm them again, slaughtered the city's men, sold its women and children into slavery, razed it so thoroughly that allegedly no stone stood upon another stone, and then sowed salt into the earth so that nothing could grow there again. _Carthago delenda est. _It was sickeningly thorough. Sigma, X thought morbidly, admired perfection. He could probably see something worthy in such atrocities. If he'd had a little more time, or a little less resistance, what might he have done?

So many who had opposed that monster were gone. So many Hunters. So many police, who'd brought to the fight all the right character traits and all the wrong weapons. So many... and Zero, the loss X felt most keenly. That remarkable robot, a true blank slate who, as one of the foundations of his identity, had taken X in as a friend when X himself didn't truly understand the word.

Killed because X hadn't realized his full potential, hadn't unlocked the limits of his strength in time.

Zero had been lucid, X remembered, right up until the moment of his demise. It was a very clean death, a ruptured power distribution system that caused his processors to wind down like clockwork. It wouldn't have been too difficult a fix for a reploid, but there wasn't a soul alive who knew Zero's secrets well enough to repair him. Any damage he took that he couldn't fix himself qualified as irreparable.

Like the wound in X's memory was irreparable, the wound he'd felt as Zero's life slipped between his fingers.

X felt a sudden surge of shame. Abel City had been devastated, and here he was mourning the loss of a single life. He hadn't known those other people who'd died, they hadn't been his friends, but they were no less worthy for that, no less people, no less loved or needed. How maudlin of him to privilege his suffering so. Suffering was the order of the day for all those left alive. He had no special claim to it.

He looked around at the ruins of Hunter Headquarters. There would be no building on the ruins of the old, here. They would have to start over altogether. If society could do the same thing, then maybe even such a catastrophe as this would be worth it. But he knew, in his heart, that it wouldn't be that simple.

It was so depressing that he knew no one could even quibble over his choice of metaphor.

* * *

The jail had not been hit. It was simple logic. Humans behind bars, by definition, couldn't harm the reploid cause, and so were a low-priority target. The days following the end of Sigma's rebellion were hectic ones, but no new criminals were charged- too few police, too much else to do. One human, however, had been added to the jails.

X walked in and stood before the cell where Dr. Cain sat on his bed, staring at the ceiling. X could out-wait almost anything, other things being equal; with a mind as powerful as his, boredom was a game he could take or leave. He didn't have time to indulge in that diversion today. "Dr. Cain," he called.

The response was slow in coming. "Well, well," he said when he was ready. "Our newest celebrity graces me with his presence. I'm surprised flowers aren't sprouting in your wake. Tell me, have you got it raining kittens yet, or did that get pushed to next week?"

"You don't have to be bitter with me, Dr. Cain," X replied.

"I didn't mean to be." X said nothing. "Listen, when you've been on a wagon for a while, and then disaster knocks you off the wagon, and then someone throws you back on the wagon whether you like it or not... it's a little rough."

X said nothing. The analogy wasn't clear to him, and speculating wouldn't have been polite. Finally Dr. Cain submitted. "Alright, I'm sorry. I took out some frustration on you, and you don't deserve that. It's been a rough couple of weeks for both of us." The elderly human gathered himself into a sitting position. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm here to get you out."

Dr. Cain's bushy eyebrows rose. "Is that a fact?"

"It is."

"What for?"

"To find a cure for the Mavericks."

Dr. Cain's face twisted into a snarl. "Why don't you just tell me to swim to the moon?! I'll get there sooner!"

The corner of X's mouth twitched upwards. He did not speak.

"It can't be done," Dr. Cain said defiantly. "Reploids have intelligence and free will. Intelligence and free will can't be shackled or they cease to be. You cannot separate good actions from bad potential. Can't be done."

X nodded. "I know that. And you know that. That makes two of us, and the Mavericks of course. But it's a believable way to get you released into Maverick Hunter custody."

Dr. Cain crossed his arms in a huff, looking for all the world like a pouting child with a full-length beard. "Not going," he said.

"You'll die."

"Buzz off." When X didn't, Dr. Cain's nose twitched. "How do you figure I die?"

"Dr. Wily was always driven to escape from prison. He held the justice system in contempt, so its judgments meant nothing to him. Socrates drank the hemlock because he felt it was his duty to submit to the law. Even if he disagreed with it, he was a citizen, and a citizen obeys. You- you're the worst of both worlds. You think the law is stupid, but you still obey it, at least a little. Staying here would drive you crazy." X leaned closer to the bars. "Or you'd be Killed Trying To Escape."

"Killed Trying To... oh. That bad, huh?"

"That bad."

Dr. Cain grunted. He and X both knew that his imprisonment was a sham. He would never go to trial. He had committed no actual crime, and no government was stupid enough to risk him taking the witness stand. But public anger had to express itself somehow...

"Whatever they want," he said with simmering anger. "I told them this would happen, I told them, and they didn't listen to me, and the results were very predictable, so they can go to Hell. I give up."

"Told them what?" X knew the answer, but knew just as well how Dr. Cain worked. You couldn't talk him into anything he didn't already believe; he was more stubborn than a malfunctioning Met. You had to let him convince himself.

"I told them that you can't take a being with all the emotions and intelligence of a human, release it into a world where it's not a person and has no legal protections, and expect things to work out. Mavericks are inevitable so long as humans think they can treat reploids any which way they please, with no consequences."

"Humans have had a century their way to make them think otherwise," X pointed out. "Since the end of the Wily Ways, robots have made humans safe and prosperous, without demanding to be treated as equals."

"Reploids aren't robots," Dr. Cain growled. "At least not robots like humans are used to. Sure, some will obey the Three Laws because they think it's the right thing to do. Others will obey because they're meek souls. Others will obey because they're treated decently, like the beings they are. Others will obey because they fear the consequences. But a few won't agree, aren't meek, have suffered abuse, and are too pissed off to care about the consequences. And guess what? That population's growing."

"Even reploids don't piss."

"You know what I mean!" Dr. Cain shouted.

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better," X said sincerely. "During the war you seemed exhausted."

"I didn't sleep during the war, as you know full well," Dr. Cain grumbled.

"So what would you have mankind do?" X prompted.

"Come to terms with reploids," the human replied. "Realize that reploids deserve the same decency and respect you'd give a stranger in the street. Bother to give a damn, that's what!"

"That sounds hard," X said. "Humans struggle to do that with other humans. A few never manage it."

"Okay, so it'll take time," Dr. Cain said. "I can understand that. Probably take a combination of generational shift, robust education, and more painful lessons like this one, though on a smaller scale if we can manage that..." he harrumphed. "Work, hard work, and time. More time than we might expect to be given. Time that increases the body count with every passing day."

Almost there. "So what can we do to buy time for the humans to come around?"

"Not much. You can't separate them, that won't work, it's been tried and it doesn't work. Hrm... really we just need to keep the two sides from killing each other until they learn how to coexist."

"Keeping humans from killing reploids... would require you to go into government," X pointed out. "I don't think they'd take you."

"Which leaves stopping reploids from killing humans." Dr. Cain shot a suspicious glare at X. "That's what you wanted all along, isn't it?"

X smiled slightly. "You told me before that you choose to stand with humanity against the Mavericks," he answered. "Whatever the crime is, extermination is not the just response."

"Alright, alright," Dr. Cain said grudgingly. "I'll come with you."

X nodded. "I thought you would. It won't take me long to convince them." He smiled at Dr. Cain, turned to leave.

"X."

The android stopped, half-turned. "Yes?"

"What do you plan to do?"

"Keep reploids from killing humans, as best I can," X replied. "Maintain peace until it becomes real in people's hearts. Until it becomes habit. Until breaking it is no longer a thought-that-is."

"It's not enough. You know that."

"It's the best I can do."

"Bullshit."

"It is," X protested.

"'Look to heaven and number the stars, if you can number them. So shall your offspring be,'" Dr. Cain said. "'You shall be the father of a multitude of nations.'"

"Book of Genesis," X said. "What's _with _you and the Bible quotes lately?"

"It's a good analogy and you know it."

"And why do you keep positioning yourself as God in these analogies?"

"My role isn't the important one. Yours is."

"You're wrong. I'm no father of nations. Isn't this our whole point, what we want? I'm the equal of any human or any reploid. No greater, no lesser."

"A deliberate dodge," Dr. Cain accused. "Sure, you're not greater or lesser, maybe, but you are more important. You're still Abraham, X, whether you like it or not."

"Some ancient patriarch, leading his people towards the promised land?" X said. "No. Not even close. Abraham was told which way to go. I'm just winging it. Besides, I'm not the father of all. I'm just a template, a prototype. Rust, I'm probably _less_ than the typical reploid. They've got the benefit of a hundred years' worth of tech refinement."

Dr. Cain snorted. "And even with all that you're still stronger in every way."

"I don't care about being stronger! What good does that do?" X replied with heat in his voice. "Zero was strong, and look what happened to him! Sigma was strong, and look what happened to _him_! Don't talk to me about strength, Dr. Cain."

Dr. Cain took his time answering. X waited impatiently, his temper running unusually hot. "When I found you," Dr. Cain said slowly, "there was a warning on your capsule. It was from Dr. Light."

X visibly stiffened. Dr. Cain noticed, and went on. "It said that, if you chose to lash out, nothing on Earth could stop you. For that reason, it cautioned anyone from opening the capsule until 30 years had passed, so that the testing could 'confirm your reliability'. I saw through that, of course. I recognized immediately that no amount of testing could guarantee a person couldn't change his mind. But I had faith, as Dr. Light had faith, that you would be a good person.

"To this point, X, our hopes have been gloriously confirmed. You've made a number of hard choices, and made them well. You've put a stop to horrific crimes and saved a lot of lives."

"And failed to save many more," X mumbled.

"You don't get it, do you? Beyond you there was _nothing. _The Mavericks had eliminated pretty much everything in the city that could have stopped them. What was next? The military? It would take them days to respond and by then the Mavericks would have outgunned them. Other countries? Even longer, and by then the reploid rebellion would have spread as copycats began to act. No, X, there is no comparison to what would have happened if you had failed to take up arms when you did. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You did a very good thing, and you have vindicated my decision to release you beyond my wildest dreams."

"Except," X countered, "that if you hadn't let me out, there wouldn't be any reploids to rebel. This war... the blood's on my hands, just for being what I am."

"Then own it!" Dr. Cain shouted. "If you're going to feel responsible for it, actually _be_ responsible for it!"

"I can't," X said, voice very small. "Not when even Father didn't believe in me."

"Huh?" said Dr. Cain, caught flat-footed.

X raised a hand, swapped it to buster mode. "Dr. Light feared what I might do. That's why he had me tested. But even that wasn't enough to put him at ease. There were... software barriers, installed in me. They prevented me from realizing my full power. I didn't even notice until the war started. I tried to do what my schematics and functional analysis said I should be able to do. I failed, and didn't know why.

"It wasn't until the worst crisis..." X shook his head away. "Well. I was able to survive the worst fight of all because the barriers revealed themselves to me and allowed me to override them. I did, just in time. After that, I fought at full power, and won.

"Dr. Light had recorded a short message for me. It played once I was out of combat. So I heard Dr. Light telling me he believed in me..." X swallowed. "...as Zero died in my arms."

Dr. Cain blanched. X rounded on him. "What was I supposed to think about that? Did Father not trust me enough to give me full power until it was too late? Did I not deserve to have power when it was about saving others, only when it was past that and it was my own hide at stake? What morality is that? If he really believed in me, like he swore he did, why limit me in the first place? He told me he loved me, and I believed him, so why? ...His light is going out on me! _What the rust is going on here?_"

It was as animated and uncontrolled as X had ever been in Dr. Cain's presence. The blue android, 'breathing' heavily to express his agitated state, put some effort into composing himself. It took time and visible struggle. He forced his mouth to close. His hand reappeared, displacing the buster. "So you see," X said, "I have trouble seeing what faith, exactly, Dr. Light had in me, and what he hoped for me to do."

"I believe in you," Dr. Cain said. "Unconditionally."

X gestured at Dr. Cain's jail cell, shook his head. "Nifty."

"Be sarcastic with me all you want, X, but it still matters to you."

X leaned forward. His voice was a hiss of escaping steam. "Then believe in me when I say that putting me in a position of leadership is a bad idea."

Dr. Cain put his hands up helplessly. "You're conflating ideas," he said.

"How so?"

"...I just wish you believed in yourself, that's all."

X shook his head. "I don't even know what you mean."

"I know," Dr. Cain said in depressed tones.

"I know my limits," X said. "I'm not a leader. I don't have charisma or rhetoric. Even if I knew how to get people to want peace, I couldn't get them there."

"Just explain to them that after your testing your moral capacity..."

"Testing? What testing? You mean that wasted time, sleeping in that tube? I've got news for you, Dr. Cain: I don't remember it. I was asleep! I was at stage one activation, my conscious mind was not engaged and the data was not saved. I don't know what testing I actually received, and neither do you. We have one short message's worth of testimony, and we don't know if it was even telling the truth. Testing," X muttered.

Dr. Cain was at a loss.

"And you know what's the kicker, Dr. Cain? What the worst part is? I know the perfect strategy. I know what we should be doing. Reploids and humans working together- can you imagine what wonders we could achieve as a symbiotic race? I can. My imagination is one of my greatest gifts. I can see a shining civilization, social and technological breakthroughs, the Earth renewed, space a second home, and more besides… But that's years and light-years away from now. What good is imagining Heaven? All it does is remind you you're in Hell. Because... it's so _obvious!_"

X punched one of the cell bars in frustration. It bent. He ignored it. "Why don't people get it? How can people not understand this? Not understand that without peace none of that's possible, can't even begin? I know the truth, I know what's best, and I know what my conscience demands. But I came out of the tube with those things fully gestated. It's like doing a maze, and starting at the end, and saying, "Well, I'm done!" You couldn't possibly lead someone through the maze if you did that.

"How am I supposed to get anyone to understand? How do I get them from wherever they are to where I am? I can't think differently than this, I can't imagine people thinking otherwise, you'd have to be a moron! How stupid must you be to think war is better?"

He was panting, now, heaving breaths from sheer agitation. He sighed and looked upwards. "But if everyone else thinks otherwise," X said, "if no one else thinks I'm right... maybe I'm the insane one, after all... maybe it's me who's stupid for wishing the impossible..."

"See? That's it, right there! That's why I said you need to believe in yourself!"

"Shut up," said X in a daze.

"I won't. I can understand reevaluating from time to time, X; it's necessary for good mental hygiene. But don't try to trick your conscience, not when it's as developed and sensitive as yours."

"What would you know about my conscience?" X said dismissively. "You can't know me that well. I hardly know myself that well."

Dr. Cain pursed his lips as he searched for the words. He couldn't let this become a battle of epistemology; those were impossible to win. "I know this, X. When evaluating any system or any problem, you need some place to start, even if it's just a flimsy axiom you came up with on the spot. You're adrift right now. You need something to stand on. Here is my axiom for you, X: _You are a good person right up until you choose not to be._"

X frowned with a slight pout. His eyes moved about, and then closed, as if to allow him to concentrate more on what was in his head. It reminded Dr. Cain strongly of when he was testing X after the android's awakening. He used to quiz him with _koan, _answer-less riddles of the Zen tradition. The idea was not to arrive at some actual answer, but to understand the limitations of language and the walls of one's thinking. Having X chew over such problems while attached to system monitors had yielded fantastic amounts of data. It was different this time. With the _koan, _he was more interested in process than outcome. Now only the outcome mattered.

X's face softened. Dr. Cain couldn't tell why. Had he accepted it? Had he found a way around it? Had his logic filters punted it completely to keep his brain from spinning circles? The human did not know.

"I'll be back soon to get you out," X said, voice quiet. "Thank you for the conversation."

"Anytime," Dr. Cain whispered to X's back.

* * *

"John? John, are you alright?"

"I'm... I'm here, Carol. Oh, God, look at that..."

"John, listen to me, we've lost visual, you're going to have to talk us through this. What do you see?"

"Carol, this is- I don't know..."

"We're counting on you, John. You're the only reporter in the field who's still giving us a feed. We need you to tell us what you see."

"O... okay. I was out near Cain Labs, I was going to... to do an interview with... get down!"

"John! John, are you alright? Was that an explosion?"

"I'm okay, Carol. This is absolute madness, just- chaos. I'm looking towards Abel City central, and there are pillars of smoke rising from the city. About... five minutes ago, we started hearing rumbles. We didn't know what it was, but now there's smoke rising there. It must have been explosions. Now cars are starting to come down the highway, people are running, Carol, something terrible must be happening, and... Jesus Christ!"

"John! Talk to me, John!"

"Carol, it's... it's Mavericks, Carol, they've weaponized some bee-bladers and now... it... it blew up the highway. Carol, it blew up the highway, there's a gap in it and two cars were sent falling... that's fifteen meters, easy... Carol, I think... I think they're trying to stop people from getting away..."

"Mavericks? John, can you confirm that? Explosions in Abel City and it's Mavericks?"

"It's got to be, Carol, I don't know how else... there are fires downtown, now, more smoke, and I can see skyscrapers blazing in the distance. That's all, it's all smoke... Carol, that's the bridge. There it goes. They blew the bridge over the bay, I'm watching it fall. No one's going to escape, Carol."

"The... the bridge? So the roads and the bridge are out?"

"I see lots of fire coming from the harbor district, too. I can't see the airport from where I am, but- shit, it's the bee-blader again, GET DOWN!"

"John! Can you hear me? John!"

"It's... it's Mega Man..."

"What do- Mega Man? Like in the children's stories?"

"I swear it's... it's X! He emerged from Cain Labs and he shot down the bee-blader! He looks just like Mega Man! Mega Man X, that's who he is! He's headed into the city- wow, he bounded up that gap in the highway like it was nothing! He's headed straight into the city! Carol, I think we're going to make it! I think we're going to be okay!"

Click.

X blinked.

Fingers tapped against each other. A human brow furrowed. A woman leaned forward, elbows resting on a table, hands clasped before her face. The hands were mismatched, one an ugly prosthetic. "Mega Man X," she said solemnly.

"I didn't come up with the name," X replied.

"The origin is irrelevant. It's in the lexicon now. It's a unit of cultural data- a meme, if you will."

"Is it?"

"You are very intelligent, X. I would rather you not play dumb with me. We have nothing to hide from each other."

X said nothing to that.

"That news report was just the start, of course. After that were the testimonials. The interviews. You saved quite a few people, and those people were all too willing to talk about what you did for them."

Nothing changed on X's face.

"Those people went on to say that Mega Man X was a hero, someone they trusted. He protected them from Mavericks when even the head of the Maverick Hunters went crazy. When they had no one else to turn to, there was Mega Man X. Oh, if only they could rely on him forever."

X cocked his head curiously, as if a test reading had come back with an unexpected result.

"He's practically a Maverick Hunter by default, isn't he? Why, yes, I'd say he is."

"I already agreed to join," X said.

"And that's a start," the woman agreed. "The ground floor. The thing is, these days, there's almost nothing between the ground floor and the penthouse."

"A funny analogy, given how many skyscrapers got knocked down recently," X said coolly.

"You must think I'm awfully callous," the woman said. Her prosthetic fingers tapped their counterparts, in sequence- a well-practiced motion, clearly, given how synchronized it was. The rapid advancements in robotics hadn't been matched with the same degree of advance in medicine or neuroscience, so controlling powered prosthetics was a more cumbersome affair than might be expected. That she was able to so easily said almost as much about her character as it did about how long the limb had been fitted to her. "Or are you wondering about how I ended up here myself?"

"Of course not," X said. He _knew _how she'd gotten there. Haley Paschal had been a mid-ranking functionary for the robotics subdivision of the Ministry of Industry. Mavericks had wiped out almost all the senior leadership- had done so, allegedly, with more than a few crows of revenge. When the dust settled, recriminations were fierce. Paschal had been in a fortunate position: senior enough to command respect, but unimportant enough to not be tied to any particular one of the government's many mistakes. After some deft maneuvering through the rubble of Abel City and men's reputations, she had slid into the post of Acting Minister.

X didn't know the story of her prosthesis. He had decided not to pry that deeply. People deserved some privacy. He knew he valued his.

"Hm," she said. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that when a reploid says he didn't think about something, what he means is 'I don't want to answer that question'. Reploids think. It's what they were built to do. That excuse is one they learned from humans."

"I'm not a reploid."

"I know my history."

X fell silent.

"You dissemble well."

"I'm sure you'll arrive at your point eventually," X replied. "I feel no need to rush you."

"Oh, yes- I was told to expect this. Your patience."

"It's good manners."

"And good tactics. I respect that. In fact, your ability to turn virtues into winning strategies is rare—and therefore valuable."

Again X fell silent.

Paschal's eyes tightened. "We're not reconstituting the Maverick Hunters," she said. "We're rebuilding. Starting from scratch. There's not enough left of them to just fill the holes. We're going to have to appropriate some infrastructure, too. I was thinking Cain Labs, at least for the interim. It's already got the facilities we need, and its position at the edge of the city is... less central."

X nodded. "Seems logical." The old Hunter Headquarters had been in a centralized part of the city, to allow for more rapid deployments. When it became ground zero for the Maverick rebellion, the same principle held. "You'll need outposts elsewhere in the city, to get the same coverage."

"Naturally. There's a fair amount of unclaimed real estate. We can make it work."

"Sounds like you have things well in hand."

"Do you believe that? Or are you saying what you think I want to hear?"

"I believe in honesty, Ms. Paschal. As you said, we have nothing to hide from each other."

"I see." Another round of finger-tapping. Most humans, in X's experience, resented having their words thrown back at them, but Haley Paschal seemed unfazed. He was beginning to understand how she'd survived the political infighting after the war.

"The process is far from complete. There's something I'm missing. Something you can help me with."

"I'm listening."

"We've discussed an opportunity on the one hand and a need on the other. A job opening, and a person uniquely qualified for that job. What say you?"

"I say that whomever you make the leader of the Maverick Hunters has big shoes to fill."

Ambiguity. A smokescreen. Sideways wasn't working. Time to get direct. "I want _you_ to be the new leader of the Maverick Hunters."

"That's not a subtle way of asking."

"It's not a subtle thing I'm asking for."

"I'll answer you in the same spirit, then. I decline. I will not seek the post, and I will not serve if appointed."

She blinked. "That seems… final."

"That was the idea."

"So you've thought about this, X?"

"At length. I will not take this job and you can't pressure me to take it."

Paschal raised an eyebrow. "Oh? I wonder at that. We all have weaknesses. Vulnerabilities. I have mine, though you'll forgive me if I don't divulge. And you have yours." She let that sink in for a moment before continuing. "Or… I could always invoke the Second Law and order you to take the job. I wouldn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be proud of doing it, but I would if I had to."

For the first time in the conversation, a tinge of emotion showed on X's face. "Are you familiar with the concept of malicious compliance, Ms. Paschal?"

"Not as familiar as I will be in two minutes, I wager."

"It means following the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit." X leaned in closer. "Say that you order me to take the post. Your order doesn't tell me to hold the post in a particular manner. All it tells me is to take that title. What about the rest of the job? Are you ready to order me to check my messages in the morning? Do you want to waste time telling me all the meetings I need to go do? Do you want to have to order me to pass orders to the Hunters? Are you prepared to micromanage my every move in a job that was already one of the most strenuous in the city, and is _guaranteed_ to get harder? I can, while obeying the Second Law, be worse than nothing... if you force me to do something I do not wish to do."

Fingers pressed against each other until the nails were white. "You're bluffing," Paschal said baldly. "You know what would happen if you were deliberately incompetent—people would die. The First Law would kick in. "...or, by inaction, allow a human being to come to harm"."

"How willing are you to gamble with those stakes? Your orders and the inert Three Laws against an actively resisting, creative, interpretive mind?"

"You have a very good mask," Paschal said eventually. "Almost good enough."

X said nothing.

"You can't go out of your way to save people one day, then be sanguine about letting them die the next."

"Sigma did."

The arms slowly went to lie on the table. "Careful, now," Paschal said. "Did you just compare yourself to Sigma?"

"I was simply pointing out what you have to be alert for, when you find someone to take this job."

"Which is one reason why I wanted you to take it."

"I decline," X said, more forcefully this time.

Paschal's lips tightened. "I won't pretend to try and understand your motivations," she said. "I don't think I could grasp them enough to talk you down. Dr. Cain knows you far better than I do, and he failed. What chance would I have?"

"Did you ask Dr. Cain to speak to me?"

It was Paschal's turn to say nothing.

"I thought we had nothing to hide from each other," X said pointedly.

Paschal gave him a slight smile. "You have a future in politics," she said. "Actually..." For the first time she looked less than certain. "I have something else I... hoped you might consider, along those lines."

"Oh?" X said, surprised for once.

"I'm agitating for a new ministry. The Office of Reploid Relations."

X's face brightened. "Well, that's something."

"The Maverick Hunters would be subordinate to the new office."

Deflation. "Oh." X's shoulders drooped. "To be the stick, I suppose. Is there a carrot somewhere in there?"

"For you, there is. You'd be the first robot in government. Not as Minister, we have to try and pace ourselves here, but as something. Executive adviser is the term I'm working with, for now."

X frowned. "If I say no, are there reploids you're considering for the post?"

Paschal said nothing.

X sighed. "I decline," he said. "I am neither a dog nor a pony."

"You know as many idioms as any human," Paschal commented. X didn't know if it was supposed to be a compliment. "I hope you know this puts me in a very difficult position. My constituents are demanding better safeguards. They want, not unreasonably, to not get blown up again."

"I will be in a good position to fight future Mavericks," X said. "And my presence as a Hunter may deter other reploids from going Maverick. I'm still helping you. Just not in the way you wanted."

"Not as much as I wanted," Paschal corrected.

"Do you enjoy being minister, Ms. Paschal?"

"It fills my days."

"You dance well."

"Thank you."

X held a hand to his left. "I love humans," he said. "I see a great deal of value in their lives. There are bad humans, but they're not a bad people. They don't deserve death at Maverick hands." He held a hand to his right. "I love reploids. I will not mislead them. I will not lie to them. I will not have them believe that I can change government policy when I can't. I will not legitimate policies I don't believe in."

"But you will enforce policies you don't believe in?" she asked him.

"I believe in peace. That's _my_ policy."

"Which you'll enforce by violence. That's funny." She did not laugh. "Ah, I see. Because as a low-ranking Hunter you'd control whether or not you, personally, pulled the trigger. That's a very narrow scope of action."

"Ms. Paschal, the only way I could enact change at a higher level than that... would be to gather power to myself. But it would have to be surreptitious, sideways, disingenuously. Reploids can't legally have political power, so I would have to break the law to get it. Does that sound like someone to you?"

"It does now," she admitted. "You really think you're no better than Sigma?"

"Sigma is a murderer. Now, at least. I am better than that." X smiled wryly. "After all, a friend told me that I'm a good person until I choose not to be."

Paschal studied X for a moment, frustration evident on her features. She slid a folder across her desk. "These are his release papers, by the way," she said. "In ink squeezed fresh from the pen."

He accepted them without looking at them. "Thank you."

"I'm glad to be of help," she said, with only a hint of bitterness.

He gave her a formal bow- Mavericks had dampened enthusiasm for the ancient custom of handshakes. He reflected, as he remained there, how wasteful Sigma's agenda was. It would have killed women like this one.

A surge of sympathy erupted inside him. Still bowed, he said to her, "You know, Ms. Paschal... surely you know that the Mavericks will target you. I won't be able to protect you forever, and that's a fact of life. There are many Mavericks and one of me. You will die if you hold on to this post."

She barked a laugh. "I'm already dead."

X's head jerked up. She shook her head. "My husband was a physicist," she said. "He worked in the Kelvin building."

The Kelvin building... which had stood in the industrial part of Abel City, until the Mavericks stormed it, and X stormed it after them... "I... see."

"No you don't," she said, eyes twinkling. "You don't grasp how two people can become one flesh, or what it means when that dies. Hm, so you don't understand everything about humans yet. How remarkable." She considered him, then seemed to decide to let him off the hook. "Without my husband, my line is ended. The genetic drive to propagate the species is burnt out of me. So there's no more advantage to my petty, individual survival. That means I'm free to do whatever I can to benefit mankind, even if that means my death. All of humanity is my family, now. And family is worth dying for."

X looked at Paschal with open admiration. Her words struck chords inside of him that resonated long after she stopped speaking. He thought back to his reasoning, moments after his awakening—how he'd just have to love everyone… "I can respect that," X told her.

She laughed and shook her head. "We live in interesting times," she said without further explanation. She stood. "Godspeed, Maverick Hunter X."

* * *

"Going home, eh?" said Dr. Cain.

"In a manner of speaking. It is convenient, I suppose." X fell silent, but something was clearly on his mind. The human didn't push him, and before long the android spoke. "Dr. Cain? Did you ever marry?"

Dr. Cain raised an eyebrow at X. "That's an unusual question for you. What brought that on?"

X shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like being ignorant," he said. "I claim to love humans. I should know them better."

"Is this something that came out of your discussion with Paschal?"

"Yes."

"Well." Dr. Cain shrugged. "No, I never married. When I was young, I was too preoccupied with work, and in my middle age I was... frustrated with my work. Now I'm old and it's too late."

X frowned. "And Dr. Light and Dr. Wily never married, either."

Dr. Cain laughed. "X, you've managed to pick some of humanity's most extreme outliers. How'd you manage that?"

"They're the humans I'm familiar with," X said defensively.

"You do move in unusual circles," Dr. Cain admitted. "I'm afraid I'd be less than helpful describing it for you. I had some colleagues who married, but there wasn't much consistency there. Some found it distracted them from their work. Others were enabled by their partners. Humans are so variable, you see. Two humans in combination..." He grinned. "I'm going to let you in on a secret. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready."

"Half the time, we don't know what we're doing, either." Dr. Cain grinned more than X thought he should.

"Is that really something to brag about?"

"Maybe not, but it is reality, so it's something to keep in mind."

X frowned unhappily.

The room wasn't much. A recharge tube at the usual thirty-degree angle. A standing desk with a single monitor-keyboard combination. Very spartan. X didn't need feel he needed more than that, so he didn't have more than that.

That he had a room to himself was remarkable. Reploids had little choice in such matters; it all depended upon the attitude of the humans around them. Dr. Cain had insisted that X have as much privacy and personal space as any human, and so he did. An upper room in the lab complex was given over to him for personal use. But Dr. Cain was strange that way. X was aware that many reploids had no such accommodations. Out there, there were places where reploids were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, the better to cut costs on infrastructure support. Those reploids had no privacy; they would do everything together- recharge, work... and stew.

X shook his head. It probably wasn't pleasant, he was sure. But to address that by resorting to the vile sin of murder? What sense did that make?

X knew that he was on the outside looking in when it came to how reploids were treated. Dr. Cain was an outlier. The other humans X had met had frequently borne some combination of awe and delight, and were disinclined to treat him poorly. Even those who saw him as nothing more than the engraving plates for their imminent fortunes were savvy enough to cloak their intentions. Politeness, interest, curiosity- a pleasant enough combination.

The labs had been like a cocoon. Things were different, now.

Most humans, X knew, didn't mistreat robots. Some treated them exactly as X would have wanted, as equal beings. The majority viewed reploids as something more like very intelligent pets. Magnanimity and benign neglect were typical. And why not? Humans had a century's social experience telling them that they could take robots for granted, that they were harmless. It couldn't be called an equal relationship, but it was far from cruel. But every bell curve has two sides. Just as there was a group that treated reploids well, there was a minority that treated them poorly, through resentment or fear or profit motive or simple tribalism. And there was a small minority, Dr. Cain's dark analogues, that viewed the Three Laws as license to do anything they wanted to robots that couldn't legally defend themselves...

Stop, X told himself. He'd spent too much time talking about such things already today. Best not- what was the human term?- bring work home. He smiled, walked to the tube, and put his hand upon it. It wasn't the same tube that had sheltered him through the long years of his hibernation. That one had exhausted itself, had cannibalized its own resources trying to stay operational. It probably couldn't have survived another ten years, definitely not another twenty. He'd been lucky Dr. Cain had gone looking for him under the guise of a paleobotany expedition.

What would have happened, he wondered, if Dr. Cain had not? Dr. Cain hinted occasionally at a dark period in his middle age. What would X's fate have been if the good doctor hadn't dragged himself through that period with his drive intact? Hadn't been, in his own fashion, such an iconoclast?

He felt himself getting morbid again and put a stop to it. It was then that he noticed the message alert on his monitor. He walked to it and accessed the message.

Sigma's face sneered at him.

X staggered backwards, arm reflexively cocking for a shot, buster capacitors whining as they charged. His emotion signifying system caused his chest to quiver, as if he were hyperventilating, and his eyes dilated. Slowly his combat subroutines decided no attack was forthcoming and released the alerts that held his system. He forced his buster arm back down. Safeties bled the energy for the charged shot back into his system. Sigma's message had concluded. X hadn't heard a word of it.

"I shot you," X babbled. "I shot you in the head! I shot you in the head _a lot_! This... can't be real!" Forcing himself, swallowing heavily, he pressed a button to replay the message.

Sigma contrived to laugh without dropping the sneer. "Surely you didn't think this was over," Sigma said. "There are still going to be Mavericks, and I will always be there to lead them. Now that they know it's possible, it's a simple matter of gravity. They will fall into my lap. You've made yourself the traitor to us, X. I offer no forgiveness. You'd better be ready, because if you fail once, let even the slightest slip, I will win and the humans will die.

"You have won a temporary victory. What you destroyed was only a temporary body- my spirit remains intact. In time I will find other bodies strong enough to do my bidding and I will return. I will see you soon, X. Very soon."

The laboratory was riven with a pained scream.

* * *

_Author's note: I wrote this story with two very specific purposes in mind. First, to explain most of what happened during X1's X-versus-Vile fight. X being able to overcome barriers that had defeated him in the past, and summon a full health bar's worth of energy _ex nihilo_, was something that I felt needed a little interpretation. I laid the groundwork for my solution in "Supernova" and "False Dawn". For a time I considered doing a one-shot fight scene, like I did for "Fratricide", but there was a little more I wanted to address._

_To wit: Why didn't X become leader of the Maverick Hunters after X1, given his intelligence, combat capabilities, and the fact that everyone else was wiped out?_

_You've already read the answer- a crisis of confidence coupled with a malign distrust of his own strength. I had never seen any story that tried to address that question, so I thought I'd take a stab at it. Special thanks to Laryna6 for discussing these things with me, and generally being an avid and verbose correspondent. (I mean that in the nicest way.)_

_Really, most of my X fics have tried to fill in details of "why" or "how", or redress plot points I found objectionable (even if that entailed rewriting whole games). I'd considered taking this story a little further, and at some future point I still might, but it stands on its own as is. It does what it was meant to do._

_My next story, however, is not tied to the events of any of the games, and is a completely original work. Coming soon (April 20): "Credo", featuring Zero, a priest, a dead body, and far more questions than answers._


End file.
